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every beneficent movement in the world's history—against even knowledge itself—against the abolition of the slave-trade. Perhaps it was not unnatural for the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Badger] to press it, even as vehemently as he did; but, it sounded less natural when it came, though in more moderate phrase, from my distinguished friend and colleague from Massachusetts [Mr. Everett]. The past furnishes a controlling example by which its true character may be determined. Do not forget, Sir, that the efforts of William Wilberforce encountered this precise objection, and that the condition of the kidnapped slave was then vindicated, in language not unlike that of the Senator from North Carolina, by no less a person than the Duke of Clarence, of the royal family of Great Britain. In what was called his maiden speech, on May 3d, 1792, and preserved in the Parliamentary Debates, he said, "The negroes were not treated in the manner which had so much agitated the public mind. He had been an attentive observer of their state, and had no doubt that he could bring forward proofs to convince their lordships that their state was far from being miserable; on the contrary, that when the various ranks of society were considered, they were comparatively in a state of humble happiness." And only the next year this same royal prince, in debate in the House of Lords, asserted that the promoters of the abolition of the slave-trade were "either fanatics or hypocrites," and in one of these classes
